blacksmithoftheapocalypse
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1139. On the Streets- Puppet Theater
🕑 Added 2024-07-27 17:59:30 +0000 UTC“Fin, Bulko, Lyxiss, go to the north. The Golems report a huge number of unknown creatures rampaging over there. Mina, please go northwest. The Saintess of Gatris was seen going rampant,”
Luf distributed the remaining members of Yulcat's Fur to the hot spots on their map.
The super secretary with the moniker of the Wise was acting as the focus of the command center directing the members of Minas Mar from the arena. While mostly the mercenaries and risen to the skies, many of the other members had entered the city on the ground to contain the chaos on the streets
“Roger,” their answers echoed from the comm-link.
...
It was hard for the northern part of the Pythian Village to come into view, as little more than a field of ruins was left. What they did see were a bunch of exotic figures and beasts moving through the debris, hunting foreigners still left in the Pythian Village.
Not to eat. Unconscious or dead people were shoved into massive baskets the beast carried on their backs. Curiously, it almost looked like a harvest festival, just that the fruits being picked were people. Quite macabre.
In this place, there were many inns and restaurants that were built by people who migrated to Urth to do business during the Games. As such, these were mostly ordinary buildings and not tree houses, like the ones in the Tree Stations. The buildings built here fell apart like matchstick houses when faced with these creatures.
“Hey, don't those look familiar?” Bulko asked suspiciously as they got closer. They were not monsters they knew from their own home world, nor did they resemble anything they had heard about. Where could they have-
“Don't they look like the puppet beasts that one cultivator used?” Fin asked unsure. racking her brain for the name of the guy.
“Wasn't it Long Huan, Long Jian... something like that?” Lyxiss tried to come up with the name.
“Long Jian! That was the name. So he was with the Silk River sect, huh?” Bulko remembered when the half-elf mentioned it.
“Let's pick up the speed and get rid of them quickly,” the fairy brute said, looking forward to a battle. The other two agreed and they sped up their Alpeka, closing in on the horde of beasts.
...
Long Jian was quite happy that he had followed the Sect Alliance here. Well, technically he was here first, but he wouldn't have come if they had not asked him. Of course, it was beneath him to actually collude with the Silk River Sect.
He was only here because it benefited him. Whether the Sect Alliance was winning in the fights above or not, was of no concern to him. It wasn't often that he got his hand on such good quality research materials.
While the alliance was distracting Minas Mar, he would fill his bags with materials and make off before anything untoward happened. Was what he thought, until he started losing connection to several of his puppets.
The people in this place were not weak, which was the whole reason for his harvest. Losing a few mid-grade puppets like Breakwind Wolves or Iron Armadillos wasn't weird, nor did he care for the cheap products. However, his heart jumped when he suddenly lost the connection to his Millennium Bull.
The Millennium Bull was one of his upper-grade puppets, one of the first he had gotten from the Sect. When it was alive, the Millennium Bull was a terrifying monster in the Spirit Severing Realm.
Its puppet was slightly weaker in spiritual energy, but he had used precious materials to further strengthen its body. Imbued with a strand of his divine consciousness, it was even able to act alone and make intelligent decisions.
Despite not being his strongest puppet, it was a shock to find out that there was someone able to defeat it in the area. Waving his hand, he brought out a new puppet. It was a massive pig, easily 4-5 stories tall. Its skin had a golden sheen to it.
“Golden Boar, go take a look. If they fought the Millennium Bull, they must be weakened now. Kill them and bring back their bodies and the Millennium Bull,” he instructed his puppet. The bull could be repaired and if he got the body of its killer on top of it, he still gained something.
After sending the pig to finish it, he didn’t pay any more attention, confident that the Golden Boar would soon return victorious. Even when he lost the connection with more cheap puppets, he didn't mind and kept collecting the bodies that the other puppets brought to him.
The confidence held true… until he lost connection with the Golden Boar, too. When the Golden Boar didn't return, Long Jian became a little upset. The Bull and the Boar were both rewards he got for sect missions, losing them like this irked him.
“I will have to go personally,” he finally decided and jumped on the back of his Bright Moon Wolf, a beast puppet he often used as a mount because of its superior speed on the ground. it didn't take long for him to reach the place, where the remnant of the golden boar were still burning.
The massive beast was sprawled across the street. The hardened shell and bones were burning with terrifying flames, but what had ended the puppet was that its reinforced skull was brutally crushed.
Long Jian swallowed hard. What was the Golden Boar? Although it wasn't his strongest puppet, it was able to fight someone at the peak of the Spirit Severing stage with just its durability. An opponent that was able to crush its skull, was someone he had to be careful of.
“Well, if it isn't Long Jian. To think one of our participants would do something like this,” he heard a high voice speak out disappointed. His head turned around, to see a tiny figure stand on a windowsill above.
She was hard to spot, if it wasn't for her bright hair reflecting the shine of the fire on the street he wouldn't have been able to make her out. he remembered her from the information he was given about Minas Mar. Fin, the Fairy, one of the concubines of the Tower Master.
Long Jian raised his guard, circulating the spiritual energy in his body. The information mentioned that she was strong in melee combat. It must have been her that had crushed the Golden Boar. The Millennium Bull was probably her doing, too. If she attacked, he was ready to defend and distract her with his best puppets.
“Are you really not going to say anything in your defense? Well, not that there could be any valid excuse, right?” she kept rambling on with a carefree voice. Long Jian scowled and then scoffed. What was there to apologize for? He knew too well, that this world practiced weird customs. The rights of the weak, what a stupid notion.
The puppet maker knew perfectly well, that if it wasn't for the agreement between the sects and the secular powers, nobody would stop their sect from collecting materials among the commoners. How much quicker could they advance if they had more supply to practice?
Just the materials he collected today would allow the human puppet techniques of his sects to advance by leaps and bounds. The elders would finally be able to research to their heart's desire. The fresh disciples would finally be able to collect real experience, instead of having to risk their lives outside with half-baked skills to secure mediocre materials for practice.
But these people, they treated the lives of these scums as something precious. They had destroyed his puppets for strangers they didn't even know. As if they could be talked into agreeing with his actions.
While the little humanoid was still talking, Long Jian had already commanded for all the puppets in the surroundings to gather at his location. he would swamp her with numbers and flee.
Suddenly the collapsed buildings to his left exploded as a blade of wind passed through. He was still planning to counter Fin, so the attack caught him off guard. it was too late to dodge. Since he couldn't evade, a towering figure appeared beside him.
It was a huge man, easily two meters tall, wearing a striking green armor. Wielding a brutal Guan Dao he faced the wind blade, his beard waving in the wind. If someone looked closely, beyond the beard, his skin was dried and reinforced, like that of a mummy. This was his strongest puppet, gifted to him by the sect leader for his protection.
The Emerald Mountain Emperor had jumped forward to save his life!
